Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today informed the Lok Sabha that the government has not fixed any time-frame to complete the linking of Aadhaar with PAN. He said this while replying to a query whether the government has fixed any time-frame to complete the linking of the 12-digit biometric Aadhaar number with the permanent account number (PAN), said a PTI report.

It may be noted that in view of taxpayers' problems and in a bid to ease out the panic situation, the Income Tax Department had on July 31st extended the deadline for filing income tax return by 5 days to August 5. It had also extended the last date for the linking of PAN with Aadhaar to August 31, 2017.

The government had said that for the purpose of e-filing return, it would be sufficient as of now to quote Aadhaar or acknowledgement No. for having applied for Aadhaar on the e-filing website. This meant that while filing your tax return on the income tax website, it was sufficient to quote your Aadhaar number or Aadhaar enrolment ID. Linking the two was not required for those who had not already done it. However, you still need to link your Aadhaar number with the PAN card till August 31. So, after filing your return you are now required to link your Aadhaar number with the PAN card any time before 31st August, 2017.

You need to remember that if you fail to do so, your IT returns will not be processed. ?The returns will not be processed until the linkage of Aadhaar with PAN is done,? CBDT had said.

As on June 28, there were over 25 crore PAN card holders in the country while Aadhaar has been issued to 111 crore people.